Nikon is getting out of the LF lens market -- and mostly out of the film camera market, according to a Jan. 11 press release at nikonusa.com.

I'm so upset, I want to smash my Nikon FM up against some bean counter's head, but I think I'll use my F -- that way the camera won't be damaged!

Nikon is going to keep making the cheapo F10 and the overpriced F6, but I guess from what I read that this is the end for the great midpriced FM line.

It's interesting that a company that until recently catered to the well-heeled nostalgia market with its recreations of 50-year-old rangefinder models has done a complete about-face and practically dropped film altogether.

Nikon has no business getting out of the film market until it can manufacture a digital camera that doesn't turn my 24mm lens into a 36mm (effective) lens.

(I have a Nikon Coolpix 5000, by the way. It's a poor camera for shooting pix of the kids with. You press the button and two seconds later it takes the picture. I think a little bird in the camera chisels the photo on the little screen.)

And how about the 28mm PC that I've lusted after all these years? There's no digital analog (pun intended) for that. Guess I'll have to keep shooting large format.

By the way, when are the going to come out the the digital Speed Graphic?

Here's the wording from the press release:

The measures that Nikon
will adopt include discontinuing production of all large format Nikkor lenses
and enlarging lenses, as well as several of our film camera bodies, manual
focus Nikkor interchangeable lenses and related accessories. Sales of these
products will cease as supplies are depleted.
Importantly, Nikon's film camera business will continue with our flagship
model F6(TM) and with the FM10(TM), allowing the Nikon brand to continue
serving the two strongest segments of the 35mm film camera market. Both
professionals and dedicated amateurs who continue to view film as their
preferred format along with students in need of an economical camera to learn
the fundamentals of photography will have ideal Nikon products from which to
choose.

I had heard a little piece of this report somewhere recently; thanks for posting the whole magilla. Grim news indeed for loyal Nikon users!

As a long-time Minolta owner I guess I can afford to gloat (at least until Konica-Minolta hits the tank). I always felt that the Minolta Rokkor lenses were outstanding. I was lucky enough to acquire the 35mm PC lens some years ago. It's a real gem!

I'm about to dump all my Nikons, F, FG, 2 n8008's and a D-100 and go Canon. I will have to get new everything but because I do so much wide angle, I pretty much need to bay all new anyway because of the small nikon ccd.

Goodness..with all this turmoil we will all be going back to using Speed Graphics,the 'old' kid on the block!.

You wait,life goes full cycle & then everyone will want one,sorry,only us privileged few will own the Graphic.

That's well after the camera phone packs up after the first call,and the digi snapper lens developes a fuzzy fault.It's that darn police car going by transmitting the signal on the screen!.911 at your service.

Yeah, you know it's a wonder that those guys didn't all keel over dead from exposure to the mercury and iodine fumes (egads!) and the other nasties involved in the process. OTOH, some of us achieve craziness without the use of artificial stimulants!

On 2006-01-21 09:18, Henry wrote:
Yeah, you know it's a wonder that those guys didn't all keel over dead from exposure to the mercury and iodine fumes (egads!) and the other nasties involved in the process. OTOH, some of us achieve craziness without the use of artificial stimulants!

Henry, since you gave me the opportunity to take a cheap shot, I'll accept it, and gladly. Are you sure that in your case it isn't senile dementia?

IIRC, a daguerreotype begins with a polished silver-plated surface (copper), which, when exposed to the vapors of iodine, creates the light-sensitive silver iodide on the plate. Plate is exposed in the camera (exposure times are long!), and developed in the vapors of mercury, forming an "image caused by fine mercury globules settling on all parts of the plate affected by light, forming the lights of the picture. The unchanged iodide was now dissolved by washing the plate with a solution of hyposulfite of soda ["hypo"] to make the image permanent, leaving the bare silver forming the dark parts of the picture." [quoted from Helmut and Alison Gernsheim, "L.J.M. Daguerre: the History of the Diorama and the Daguerreotype," Dover 1968, p. 103.] The resulting image was exquisite, and also extremely delicate and fragile, requiring mounting behind glass for protection. The image was unique, and laterally reversed.

The point of all this is that (even) if non-toxic ingredients could be found that would work, the result would not be a daguerreotype as Daguerre himself defined it. Fox Talbot in England took photography to the next level when he invented the negative-positive process in the 1840s.